Say Anything Blog

Since Sarah Palin first popped onto the nation’s radar, one of her most ardent critics has been conservative columnist Peggy Noonan.  Noonan, of course, has been more respectful and circumspect in her criticism of Palin than others, and for that she gets my respect, but I’m not sure anyone loathes Sarah more than Noonan does.

Except maybe the people who perpetuate myths about Sarah’s baby Trig not really being hers.

So it’s not at all surprising that Noonan has a scathing column in the Wall Street Journal essentially saying “good riddance” to Palin.  You can read the whole thing here, but this is the crux of her argument I think:

Here’s why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think.

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted.

The problem I have with this is that it is a decidedly non-conservative argument to make.  Noonan says we need “gifted” political leaders to apply government solutions to the problems we face.  I would suggest, at least on domestic issues which are likely to be the most serious issues we face in the next dozen years or so, that our problems have been created by far too many politicians who we think are brilliant and gifted thinking they actually can solve all the problems for us.  Government intervention in our economy, our markets and our day-to-day problems has created or at least contributed to most of the major issues we face.

What we need now is not more “gifted” politicians in office, presumably to pull the right government levers and make everything all better, but rather someone who will recognize that government is the problem and seek to transfer much of the power the government has accumulated for itself (at a more rapid pace over the last 75 - 80 years than any other time in our history) back to the people.  I was talking with a friend this morning about Noonan’s article, and he told me that mainstream Republicans (like Noonan, I’d suggest) are missing the boat on the role of government.  Rather than recognizing that the government doesn’t have all the solutions, they simply want to pursue other more restrained solutions than the liberals want.

I shudder at the thought of more “gifted” politicians pursuing their interpretations of what the government needs.  We need to limit government.  I think Sarah Palin, though far from perfect, is someone who could move us in the right direction.